My great-great-grandfather, William Charles Brazier, was born in 1822 in Poplar, Middlesex, and baptised at St Dunstan and All Saints Church, Stepney, on 12 May 1822. His parents, Thomas and Rebecca, were both 22. In 1842, he married Jane Harrison Brazier in Maidstone, Kent. They had five children together, and he had a son from another relationship. He died in June 1892 in London at the age of 70.
In 1841, he lived on Chapel Street and worked as a labourer. Chapel Street in Marylebone was home to artisans and labourers, including furniture makers, tailors, and shoemakers, with many female heads of household. William was single and lived as a lodger.
At 20, William married Jane Harrison, who was fifteen, in Maidstone, Kent. This is surprising, as neither seems to have any connection to the town, about 80 kilometres from where William lived in London.
In 1844, two years after their marriage, Jane was seventeen, and she and William had their first child, Martha Rebecca Brazier. Their second child, Jane Elizabeth Brazier, died in childbirth in 1886 while the family lived in Stepney.
Census data from 1851 shows the family had moved to Stratford-le-Bow, commonly known as Bow. OS Maps of the mid-19th century show Back Street behind the Drapers’ Almshouses. Between this time and 1856, Jane gave birth to two more children, both of whom died in childbirth. The family then moved to Hill Place in Poplar, where my great-grandmother Hannah Matilda Brazier was born.
By 1881, with their children married or living away, William and Jane moved to 12 Giraud Street, Poplar. Giraud Street likely had tightly packed rows of terraced houses, often modest and built quickly to meet high demand. Like many areas in the east end, it suffered from overcrowding, poverty, poor sanitation, and disease. These conditions likely contributed to Jane’s death in 1883 at the age of 61.
Now a widower, William spent his remaining years at 28 Church Street, West Ham, before dying at 70 in 1892.
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